


Stardust

by Mizmak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Created the Stars (Good Omens), Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M, Rings, Romance, Sentimental, Sweet, promise rings, soppy beyond belief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizmak/pseuds/Mizmak
Summary: Aziraphale goes to extraordinary lengths to find the perfect gift to express his feelings for Crowley, though before he can give it, he needs to make a certain confession that he knows Crowley won't like.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 131





	Stardust

Aziraphale had known for a very long time that when Crowley had been an angel, he had helped build the stars.

Yet he had never said a word about this, because he knew how his friend would likely react. Crowley hated being reminded of his origins, as that reminded him of the Fall. 

The stars he had made were beautiful, and he wouldn’t like anyone accusing him of creating beauty, either. He certainly made regular objections whenever accused of being kind in any way.

Though his protests over being called _nice_ or _kind_ or _good_ had, in Aziraphale’s considered opinion, a hollow ring. He protested just a little _too_ much.

Nonetheless, there was a certain bravery within Aziraphale that would rise when needed, and he needed it after ending the End of the World. He needed to show, not merely tell, Crowley how he truly felt about him. And so one day, he decided to give Crowley something special – as a debt of gratitude for his friendship, as restitution for the mistakes he had made, and as a token of the love he could give.

And so one day, he flew off to the Heavens - all the way to the stars.

The chocolate mousse at the Ritz was scrumptious. Aziraphale had eaten it slowly, swirling each blissful bite around his mouth to capture every last essence of the smooth, rich chocolate as it melted deliciously on his tongue.

As usual, Crowley sat there just watching him, having taken only two bites from his own dessert. 

“Mmm. That was wonderful.” Aziraphale dabbed the serviette over his lips. “Are you going to finish yours?”

Crowley shoved his over. “Have it.”

“I think I will.” He ate the second mousse with as much enjoyment as the first, looking up at the end to see his friend gazing raptly at him. “Thank you.”

Crowley smiled and held up his champagne glass. “To all sweet things.”

As he clinked his glass, Aziraphale couldn’t help but wonder if that included _him_ , not that Crowley would likely admit to such a sentiment. He drank the lovely effervescent liquid, and let out a sigh. “Perfect evening.”

“Good company.” Crowley finished his champagne. “Back to the bookshop?”

“As always.” The tradition of dining followed by a nightcap was now firmly set. “I have a little something there to show you.”

“Oh? Fascinating new tome? Or a record album from later than 1930?”

“Hush. It’s – well, you’ll simply have to come and find out.” Aziraphale felt a tingle of nervousness. There would be a _fuss_ over the whole thing, of that he felt certain. Possibly even anger, or denial. He really wanted this to go well, but there was one confession he needed to make first before that could happen, and he would need to muster the courage to speak it.

“Huh.” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Curious. All right, let’s go see this mysterious something of yours.”

“I think you’ll like it,” Aziraphale replied.

_I dearly hope you do_.

He made Crowley wait. The mood needed to be right.

After entering the bookshop, he took off his coat, set the lights down low, and put a collection of romantic adagios on the gramophone. Then he poured two glasses of brandy and invited Crowley to join him on the sofa.

Crowley relaxed against the cushions, close beside him. He took his glass and sipped it. “What’s the special occasion, Angel?”

The tingling sensation shivered up his spine again. Aziraphale took a rather fortifying drink. “I have a gift for you.”

“Really? A gift?” Crowley raised both eyebrows. “That’s different.”

“I’m aware that it is. But I have a good reason.”

“We don’t have birthdays, you know.”

He’d been right to worry. Crowley was going to make this harder than it should be. “I _had_ noticed that, yes. This isn’t easy for me. Please don’t be – well, please try to understand.”

Crowley sighed. “Very well. Try to explain, then.”

Might as well get the hardest part over first. He took a deep breath and said, “I happen to know that you once made stars.”

“ _You what?”_

He could feel Crowley’s body tense beside him. “I know what you did when you were an angel.” He dared a look at Crowley, who had taken off his sunglasses.

His eyes were hard and bright. “Since _when_ do you know anything about that? I have _never_ talked about it and I never _would_.”

Aziraphale swallowed. This would be hard, but it was necessary. He would be brave. “Yes, that’s true. But five thousand years ago, I decided to find out who you were.”

“Oh, is that right? _Why?”_

“Because I’d run across you often enough by then to wonder.” Aziraphale took another fortifying sip of brandy. “I wondered why you were – well – _different_ from what I’d expected a demon to be like.”

“Had a lot of experience with them, did you?” Crowley positively glowered at him. “Are you serious? What did you _do?”_

_It will be all right in the end, when he understands_. “I went to the Heavenly archives to look you up.”

“I see.” Crowley set his glass on the coffee table, and started to rise.

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale set down his own glass.

“What does it look like? I’m leaving.” He heaved himself off the sofa.

“No, you are not!” Aziraphale stood up to grab his arm.

Crowley tried to shake him off, but Aziraphale had a firm grip. “Angel, knock it off. I am _not_ going to sit here and listen while you try to tell me what a wonderful angel you think I was, because that was _six thousand damned years ago_ and has nothing to do with what I am now!”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“Just leave me the fuck alone!” Crowley wrenched his arm away.

“ _No_.” From some hidden depth, Aziraphale found the courage to take hold of him by the shoulders and force him down onto the sofa. “I’m sorry, but you are _going_ to listen.”

“The hell I am.” He tried to rise again but Aziraphale stood over him, and with a strength born of primal need, held him in place. 

Crowley glared up at him. “I can just miracle myself away.”

“Go on, then. _Run away_.” 

“ _Angel—_ “ Suddenly Crowley collapsed, the fierceness fled, replaced by puzzlement. He sank onto the sofa. “Angel, why are you doing this?”

“Because I want you to understand.” Aziraphale took a calming breath, then sat down, turning to face him. He lay a hand on Crowley’s knee. “There’s no reason to be upset. I only wanted to explain how I know about the stars. It’s important.”

“Fine, whatever.” Crowley looked away, down at his hands, which were clenched between his thighs. “So I made stars once. Can we leave it at that?”

Aziraphale considered the request, then shook his head. “I want you to know why I went there. And no, I had no experience with demons. Only what I’d been told, which was not flattering in the least. I was told that all of the fallen angels were soulless, cruel creatures without pity or love. From that first moment on the wall of Eden, I knew that to be wrong.”

He started to caress Crowley’s knee, then up his thigh. He felt the muscles tense beneath his touch, then slowly relax.

“What are you doing, Angel?” 

He ignored this. “The more I knew you, all those millennia ago, the more I wondered why you were nothing like what I’d been told. Even while tempting them, you seemed to _care_ about the humans, and you didn’t do anything truly evil. What made me wonder the most, though, was the way you cared about _an angel_. Your hereditary enemy. So I went to the Archive to see what it could tell me.”

Crowley looked up at him. “I told you, that was a _long_ time ago. The stars – that’s all lost to time, it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.”

“No? Then why -- when I stayed at your flat that night, and looked round at everything there – why was the _only_ book in it about astronomy?”

His question was met by silence. 

“Right.” Aziraphale continued his caress. “You helped build the stars, and nebulas. And you haven’t forgotten them. And they _are_ incredible, and they are beautiful.”

Crowley’s body tensed again. “ _Don’t_ go on about it.”

“I won’t.” _Not just yet, anyway_. Soon, though, he definitely planned to go on about it. But first, he had more to say about what he had learned all those millennia ago. “That’s when I also found out that you hadn’t intended to fall.”

He felt a stronger tension, as if Crowley were about to spring up off the sofa again, so Aziraphale tightened his hand on his thigh for a brief moment. 

The moment passed, and the tension eased. Crowley sighed. “Fine. No, I never meant to fall.”

“You didn’t even fight in the War. Merely in the wrong place, swept up with the wrong group of angels at the wrong time.”

Crowley unclenched his hands. He rested one on top of Aziraphale’s hand. “But I _did_ ask too many questions. Before that. Heaven doesn’t like it when you ask _why_ once too often.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Not that anyone should be punished simply for wanting answers. 

“So it’s not as if I were a bloody saint among angels who made a slight misstep, Angel.”

“I didn’t say that you were.” Aziraphale knew this conversation had been hard. Time to make everything easier. “However, the things I learned back then _did_ make me feel that you weren’t an enemy at all. That we could be _friends_.”

Crowley gently stroked his arm. “Really? I knew that from day one, and I didn’t need to know a single thing about _your_ past first.”

“No?” Aziraphale smiled. “Well, I may be a little slower at times than you are.”

“And a lot more cautious.”

True enough. “Yes.” But not any longer. He took a deep breath. “The important thing is, that when I saw that book in your flat, I knew that you hadn’t forgotten the stars.” 

Crowley gazed at him for a long moment. “All right. Maybe not entirely.”

“Maybe not _at all_.” Aziraphale felt it was time to dare a closer touch. He reached to brush his fingers down Crowley’s face and along his throat. “You never completely let go of that part of you deep inside – the angelic part – that once held stardust in his hands.”

Then he reached farther still, and touched Crowley’s lips. “I love you for trying to hold onto that, and for so much more.” 

Crowley closed his eyes. “Angel – “ He gulped, then opened his eyes as he clasped Aziraphale’s hand, the one touching his lips. “ _Aziraphale_ –“ He kissed the hand. “I wasn’t _meant_ to love you.”

“Neither one of us was supposed to love the other. But we did. We _do_.”

Crowley let go his hold, and leaned in to kiss Aziraphale on the forehead. “Why did you make me so angry tonight?” 

“I didn’t _want_ to, my dear.”

Crowley kissed the tip of his nose. “Well, you did.”

“So sorry.”

“Don’t do it again.” Crowley kissed each of his cheeks.

“I won’t.” The trembling shiver returned in anticipation. “I promise.”

“Good.” Crowley found his way to Aziraphale’s mouth, and their lips met. 

The shiver turned into a wave of delight as they kissed, and Aziraphale felt a tremendous release as all tension fled. He wrapped an arm around Crowley’s waist, and was embraced in return. As his lips touched Crowley’s, he touched fire, he touched heavenly light, and he lost himself to the stars.

When the kiss ended, he found he was looking into a pair of very wide golden eyes. “Good, was it?”

All Crowley could do was nod. Then he kissed him again, and _that_ kiss didn’t end for quite a long time, nor did the next one.

At last they paused in this newfound exploration, still within a soft embrace. Crowley raised an eyebrow. “What happened to this gift you talked about earlier?”

“Oh, my word, I nearly forgot!” And it had been the whole reason behind this tightrope conversation in the first place. The distraction of the kisses had certainly addled his brain.

Aziraphale reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. He opened the lid. Inside nested two rings. “The jeweler explained that these are called promise rings. They are meant to indicate the commitment between two people – a commitment of love.”

He took one from the box and held it out. “Take a close look. They’re identical.”

Crowley took the ring between his thumb and index finger, and turned it round slowly, his eyes wide. “It-- it _shines_.”

Aziraphale took his own ring out for another look, though he was intimately familiar with it. The rings were silver bands, engraved with their names in an elegant script in a way in which the letters overlapped and wrapped through each other. The bands shone with pinpricks of embedded light, an ethereal blue-white light that shimmered and sparkled in between and around the engraving.

“The lights are stardust,” he said.

Crowley gaped at him. “Stardust… _how did you…_ you got me _stardust?”_

For the sheer joy in his beloved’s face, the trouble had all been worth it. “Yes, and I must say, it took me a while to get there. I went all the way to the Grand Nebula, because I knew it was one of _yours_. When the stars it created were formed, they left behind clouds of dust.”

Crowley turned the ring round and round, his eyes shining with newly formed tears. “I _made_ this light….”

“Yes, and that’s why I had to tell you how I knew what I knew about your past – and why it mattered.”

Crowley looked from the ring to Aziraphale and back to the ring. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Aziraphale took off the gold ring he had worn since the dawn of his existence, and set it on the table. That was Heaven’s ring, and he didn’t want it anymore.

“Ring finger, left hand, I believe,” he said. He slid his silver stardust ring on and held it up. “I do hope yours fits. I had to guess – your fingers are more slender than mine.”

Crowley slipped it onto his left ring finger. “It’s perfect.”

Aziraphale smiled. He intertwined his ringed hand with Crowley’s. “It is indeed. And it’s a promise that I will stay with you forever.”

“Angel—“ Crowley choked back a sob. “You – there are fucking _tears_ in my eyes! I haven’t cried since –“ He broke off. “Oh.” His eyebrows furrowed. “It wasn’t all that long ago.”

“No? When was that – at the bar when I was discorporated, was it? You did look quite upset there.” That would have been after the bookshop fire, then.

“Yeah. When I thought you were gone.” Crowley let go his hand and took him in a tighter hold. “I’m not like that.”

“Not like what?” 

“Bloody _sentimental_.”

“Of course not.” Aziraphale relished the hold, and the way he was caressing his back. He brought his hand up to brush Crowley’s hair. “You’re not kind, or nice, or good, either.”

“Damned right.” Crowley nestled his head against Aziraphale’s chest. “And demons do _not_ cry. Not ever.”

“I wouldn’t dream of disagreeing with you.” Aziraphale kissed the top of Crowley’s head. “Very risky, that.”

“Mmm-hmm. Not recommended.”

“Unless, of course, it’s for a damned good reason.”

Crowley pulled away a little, looked at him, and smiled. “Yes.” He took his left arm from the embrace long enough to hold his hand up, showing the ring. “ _This_ was a good reason.” He slid the arm around Aziraphale’s waist once more. “And I lied just now.”

“About not being kind or nice or good?” 

“About not being sentimental.” He sighed. “Maybe the rest, too. I made one _lousy_ demon.”

“Precisely.” Aziraphale relaxed into the warmth of the embrace as they both settled against the sofa cushions, utterly content now. “As I said, I knew you were different, from the very beginning. Not that I was terribly good at being an angel, either.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Crowley murmured against his chest. “Best angel ever.” Then he laughed softly. “Well, I’m still not too sure about that flaming sword thing.”

Aziraphale found that he could laugh about that as well. “I don’t suppose it’s important now, anyway. Not any of it. Everything that happened was going to happen, no matter what.”

“Oh, yeah? Written in the stars, was it?”

“Well, I know _one_ thing that was written there.”

“What’s that?”

“ _Love_.” He tilted Crowley’s chin up to kiss him lightly. “Because you put it there when you made them.”

“ _That_ is beyond sentimental, Angel. How could you know?”

“I _went_ there, remember?” He felt the tears in his own eyes then. “Angels can sense love, remember? _Anywhere_. Even within the stars.”

“Oh.” Crowley stared at him. “ _Oh_.” He brushed the tears from Aziraphale’s cheeks. “I didn’t think it would last so long.”

“It was wondrous. And a small part now lies within our rings.”

“Stardust…” Crowley brushed a fleeting kiss across Aziraphale’s lips. “I think you just won the prize for being the most sentimental. And I love you, Angel.”

All worth it, every year of the last six thousand years. “I love you, too, my dear.” He didn’t mind winning that prize at all.

They stayed together on the sofa long into the night, and during the early hours of the morning, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, while up in the sky, the stars shone down upon them in heavenly accord.


End file.
